Consider two options for wild horse management.  One was announced by the Forest Service, the other proposed by the advocates.

Can you tell which is which?

Alternative A

• Initial population: 400
• Final population: 0

Alternative B

• Initial population: 400
• Final population: 0

Let’s add headings and change the numbers to reflect the way they were sold to the public.

Alternative A – Motorized Removal

• Initial population: 400
• Final population: 0

Alternative B – Nonmotorized removal

• Initial population: 400
• Final population: 200

Now can you tell the difference?

The bureaucrats decided to implement Alternative B, the plan submitted by the advocates.

Why is it a hoax?

Because the volunteers are sterilizing the mares.

The final population will be zero.

RELATED: Advocates, Not Forest Service, Destroying Salt River Herd

This commentary in High Country News was written 30 years ago.

Remarks pertain mostly to allotments in Arizona, including Sunflower, from which the Salt River horses were removed.

If the figures were updated, the memo could be sent to DOGE.

RELATED: Repurposing Sunflower.

As you read this article about the fertility control program, think of Simone Netherlands as a marionette with Suzanne Roy pulling the strings.

The events leading to the current situation are discussed in a 2019 report to the Arizona Department of Agriculture and U.S. Forest Service.

In a nutshell, the Forest Service announced that it would be removing wild horses from the Tonto National Forest and the advocates stepped in and said “Let us do that.”

Recalling the early days, Netherlands said “At that time, we narrowly escaped removal of the Salt River Wild Horses and offered our way of management to both the state and the federal government.”

What she meant was their way of removal.

One of her most outrageous statements involves birth rates and breeding patterns: “If we do want the mare to have a baby, we just don’t dart her that year,” as if conception can be switched on and off like a light bulb—a reference to the sperm-blocking theory.

The longer a mare has been treated with PZP, the longer she takes to regain fertility, about a year per year.

After five years of treatment, she won’t recover.  She’s said to be self-boosting, a codeword for sterile.

Clearly, the horses are not in control of their future.

The management plan allowed ten years for birth control and natural attrition to reduce the herd to 100-200 head, from an initial size of around 400.

Do you think after a decade of nonstop darting the herd will come in for a soft landing, finally in balance with its surroundings?

That’s what they tried at Assateague Island and the herd was still shrinking eight years after the darting program was shut off.

RELATED: Salt River Darting Program by the Numbers.

Don’t be fooled by the advocates.

If it’s done with pesticides, they fully support it.

If the BLM announced it will zero-out the Rock Springs HMAs with PZP, the advocates would drop their lawsuits and offer to do it at no cost to the government.

They are phonies, allies of the ranchers, leaders of the blind.

RELATED: Court Hears Arguments in Rock Springs Grazing Appeal.

Would you attend a lecture based on lies and propaganda?

Consider this statement, taken from the undated announcement:

Wild horse populations grow at a rate of 15-20% per year and compete with cattle, deer, elk, and bighorn sheep for valuable forage and water resources, which threaten fragile riparian ecosystems through soil compaction and overgrazing.  While most U.S. policies advocate for the removal of these “non-native” horses, horse advocates continue to push for more territory and rights.

Cattle are the nonnative species and on public lands they outnumber wild horses by a huge margin.

Growth rates of 15-20% per year require birth rates of at least 20-25% per year and this is rarely seen in roundup data.

In discussions of wild horses, conservation is a codeword for eradication, make sure ranchers get most of the resources.

BLM allotments in Arizona support livestock equivalent to 53,662 wild horses on 10,090,546 public acres, or 5.3 wild horses per thousand public acres.

Remember last April, at the Save Our Wild Horses Conference in Reno, when they were higher than a kite on HMAPs?

Now that the plans are rolling out, they’ve developed a bad case of amnesia.

Consider the Pancake HMAP, just released.  It’s discussed in Appendix XIII of the Final EA for management actions in the Complex.

• Area will be managed for 336-638 wild horses
• Gather and remove excess animals to reach low AML as soon as possible
• Apply fertility control pesticides and/or IUDs to released mares
• Maintain a sex ratio of 60% males and 40% females
• Bring in mares from another HMA if genetic diversity declines

This must be good for the herd because it doesn’t include aerial shooting.

RELATED: Antelope-Triple B HMAP Proves Advocates Are Ill-Informed About Wild Horses.

The river flows westward through a mountainous area in the Tonto National Forest until it reaches Saguaro Lake.

Along the way, it passes the Sunflower Allotment to the north and the Reavis, Tortilla, Superstition and Goldfield Allotments to the south.

Then it flows west southwest through Goldfield before crossing into BIA land.

The Saguaro WBT overlaps the southern portion of Sunflower but it is inactive, the equivalent of an HA on BLM land.

Sunflower is permitted for cattle according to the ArcGIS viewer.

Reavis, Tortilla and Superstition are vacant and Goldfield has been closed.

In years past, wild horses were spotted around the lake, including the Butcher Jones Recreation Area at the southern edge of Sunflower.

They can also be found at Coon Bluff and the Phon D Sutton Recreation Area, both of which are at the western end of Goldfield.

Robbing forage from Sunflower livestock would be unacceptable but there are probably fences keeping them out of that area so there must be some other reason the advocates are sterilizing the mares with PZP.

Here’s a simple pass/fail test:

• Do they include public lands?
• Were any allotments repurposed for wild horses?

If the answers are No, they represent victory for the ranchers and failure for the horses.

Most sanctuaries fall into this category, which is why the advocates like them.

RELATED: Key Indicators for New Wild Horse Preserves.

The project includes deeded acreage in the Buckeye and Pine Nut allotments, which overlap the Pine Nut Mountains HA.

The Authorization Use Report shows they’re permitted for cattle and sheep.

Bottom Line: It’s in an area where livestock are welcomed but horses are not.

RELATED: Fish Springs Land Trust Helps Livestock or Wild Horses?

Translation: Massive human involvement, poisoning the mares with PZP.

Added to AdvocateSpeak decoder.

Velma’s first encounter with the horse runners occurred 75 years ago.

The Virginia Range was ground zero.

Today, it is the site of the world’s largest mass sterilization program, an insult to her legacy and harbinger of changing attitudes toward wild horses—among those who claim to be their voices.

Women have always been at the forefront of the movement but today’s women are not like those of 1950.

They’re liberals—anti-God, anti-life and anti-family.

For them, wild horse preservation came of age with the advent of PZP, a restricted-use pesticide that sterilizes mares after five years of treatment.

That aligned with their wicked ideology and explains what you see today.

Only one document was copied to the project folder, a categorical exclusion which said NEPA analysis wasn’t necessary.

RELATED: Court Halts AIP.

The March 6 hearing has been scrubbed from the bill actions.

R.I.P.

RELATED: SB 2331 Lives?

Today marks the beginning of 40 days of prayer, fasting and almsgiving ahead of Easter.

It’s also Velma’s birthday.

Beware of the charlatans and their false promises.

They are phonies, leaders of the blind, irrelevant.

What will happen now that the incentive has been abolished?

• Roundups will continue
• Wild horses and burros will still be offered for adoption
• Adoptions will decrease
• Off-range holding will increase

The government will need new ideas to keep the populations in check.

Who will be waiting in the wings to provide those services?

Those who brought the lawsuit.

Totally self-serving.

RELATED: Court Halts AIP.

Should this be construed as an endorsement of the bill?

The Campaign Against America’s Wild Horses, a leader in nonmotorized removal and fierce opponent of principal use, wants to replace helicopter roundups with mass sterilization, abnormal sex ratios and faulty immune systems.

Velma would be horrified.

RELATED: Colorado Wild Horse Working Group Calls Special Meeting.

NOTE: If you’re trying to pass yourself off as a voice for wild horses, an endorsement from CAAWH is like an endorsement from Elko County.  It is an albatross, the kiss of death, as is the case for Wild Horse Fire Brigade.

The resource now requires a login.

Seems like the agency has become more secretive since the inauguration.

In the image below, an advocate protects wild horses on the Virginia Range.

Similar observances are held throughout the year at the Salt River, Spring Creek Basin, Pine Nut Mountains, Sand Wash Basin, Little Book Cliffs, McCullough Peaks, Cedar Mountain and Onaqui Mountain, just to name a few.

RELATED: National Horse Protection Day: Not What You Think It Is.

Refer to the AdvocateSpeak decoder.  Words have different meanings in the wild horse world, so NHPD could be rebranded as:

• Interfering with the transmission of life day
• Nonmotorized removal day
• Help the advocates buy more pesticides day
• Managing principally for livestock day
• Protecting the ranchers day
• Off the range day

The governor of Colorado made it effective for an entire month.

Then he went back to scandalizing the faithful.